Drifting
by katriel1987
Summary: He's afraid he'll hate the person he finds inside his own soul.


Title: Drifting

Author: Katerina17

Pairings: Sam/Daniel

Spoilers: "Past and Present", "Menace", "Meridian", "Fallen"

Season: 7

Content Warnings: None

Disclaimer: "Stargate SG-1" and its characters are the property of MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Film Corp., Showtime/Viacom and USA Networks, Inc. This story is for entertainment purposes and the author (me) is not getting paid for it. No copyright infringement is intended. (Really.)

* * *

The elders ask Arrom if he is beginning to regain his memories. They look at him with compassionate eyes. They want him to find out who he is, because they like him and in some small, strange way, he belongs to them, to their people. They found him when he fell from the stars. They took him in.

"No," he says. "I remember nothing." He looks into their faces and feels guilty because he can tell they believe him and they're sad for him.

His memories consist of flashes, vague impressions, fleeting images. He hears screams and sees blood and fire and unspeakable evil. He feels the recoil of a weapon in his hands and watches as blood spurts and his enemy falls with lifeless eyes staring toward the sky.

He doesn't feel like a killer, but the memories are there. They frighten and disgust him and so he runs from himself, because he's afraid to find out who he really was. He's afraid he'll hate the person he finds inside his own soul.

It's hard to reconcile the violent flashbacks with the person he is now. He is compassionate and intelligent and for some reason the ruins surrounding him draw him like a magnet. When he touches the cool, smooth stone, runs his fingers over ancient script, he feels as if he has come home. He feels as if this is who he really is, what he's meant to do.

Why then does he remember killing?

* * *

The soldiers are dressed in dark green clothing that strikes a chord somewhere in the recesses of Arrom's lost life. He startles them, and they lift weapons. The moment he sees those weapons, he knows he can no longer run. Despite his best efforts, the person he was, the person who killed, has found him.

One of the soldiers steps forward, wide-eyed and amazed. "Dr. Jackson?"

* * *

All the way back to camp, Arrom tries to convince himself that he isn't really Dr. Jackson. The name doesn't sound familiar, but not many things do. There have never been names in his flashbacks, only images and screams and death and dying.

The only faces he remembers are the faces of his dead enemies.

There are people waiting in the old city, green-clad like the others. Their eyes widen when they see him and he recognizes the emotion - awe and wonder and disbelief. They know him, much better than the other soldiers. Maybe once he knew them, but he doesn't any more, and he's not sure he wants to.

The beautiful blond woman steps forward, her eyes wide and very blue. "Daniel?" She says, reaching for his arm. "It's okay. It's me, Sam - "

His hand comes up almost of its own volition, warding off the touch. He doesn't like to be touched. The nomads - _his_ people - they know not to touch him. Maybe they know him better than this woman ever did. Maybe he's no longer the person this woman knew. Maybe he doesn't want to be.

The hurt in her eyes is instant and deep. "I'm sorry," he says, and feels sad for her even though he's scared of her and what she knows about him. She's so very beautiful but her voice and her face and her hands are completely foreign to him.

"Do you not recognize us, Daniel Jackson?" The large dark-skinned man asks, his voice surprisingly soft.

Arrom shakes his head. He feels smothered; he has to get away.

_I'm not Daniel Jackson! I'm not!_

He walks past them into the tent, and doesn't stop even when one of them calls after him.

_I'm not Daniel Jackson!_

* * *

The gray-haired man, Jack, is the first to step inside the tent. He's hesitant, uncomfortable, taking off his cap and looking down as if unsure where to place his feet. He tries to hide his uncertainty behind a flippant, confident façade. Arrom is certain that Jack does that a lot. His certainty frightens him, because it might mean that he really _is_ Daniel Jackson.

After Jack leaves, his awkward entreaties falling on deaf ears, there is silence for a while. Arrom likes silence. In silence he sometimes finds brief peace, a respite from the turbulence and confusion of not knowing himself.

Later there is a rustle at the door, and the blond woman appears, nervously running her fingers through short blond hair. Her anxious eyes sweep his face, and something stirs in him, some elusive flicker of memory or emotion or possibly love. Arrom thinks he could look at her face forever. She's not a stranger any more - he almost wishes she still was.

"Can I come in?" She asks softly.

During their conversation he tries hard not to reveal his doubt and fear, his dislike of the person he sees in his flashbacks. He can tell Samantha Carter cared deeply for Daniel Jackson, just as the part of him that's still almost Daniel cares for her. How can he tell her that he's afraid he'll hate the man who was her best friend - the man he once was?

"What if I don't like the person I was?" He tries to keep his voice calm but fear leaks out into his tone, his eyes. "What if I don't want to be that person? What if I don't have it in me to make up for something I've done wrong?"

_What if I can never bring back the lives I've snuffed out? What if I can never escape their accusing eyes?_

She leans toward him, her eyes intense. "You were ... you are ... brilliant. One of the most caring, passionate ... you're the type of person who would give his life for someone he doesn't even know."

_If that is so, why did I take lives? Why didn't I spend my time saving people instead of killing them?_

"That doesn't sound too bad," he says tentatively.

Impassioned now, she continues, "If you had one fault, it was that you wanted to save people so badly, you wanted to help people so much, that it tore you apart when you couldn't make a difference."

His eyes widen as a memory, never more than a flash at the edge of his mind, suddenly emerges.

**_"Reese, your father made you WRONG!"_**

"NO!" Eyes brimming with tears, the dark-haired girl ran down the ramp toward him, her body shaking with emotion.

"YES!" He shouted back, cradling his injured arm. "You destroyed your world!"

She sobbed, squeezing her eyes shut. "I didn't mean to!"

"I know." He reached out to Reese, willing her to let him save her. "But now you're going to destroy mine too."

"I don't want to!"

"I know. That's why you have to stop now. No one will hurt you. We may be able to fix you."

"How?" Her hoarse voice cracked as her brown eyes entreated him to do the impossible and fix a flaw she didn't even understand.

"Shut off your toys and go to sleep. We'll find a way."

She hesitated, hanging perilously between life and death, a robot who was damaged and confused and so agonizingly human.

"I will wake you up myself," he whispered. "I'm your friend. I don't want you to die."

Daniel Jackson tried to save the girl named Reese, the brilliant robot-child who was viewed as nonhuman by the rest of the world. He almost gave everything to save her.

For the first time, Arrom begins to believe what these people are telling him about the man he once was.

Focusing once again on Samantha Carter, he searches his mind, trying to discover the fragile thread that links the two of them together. What were they to each other? Friends? Family? Something ... else?

"Samantha Carter," he says as she stands to leave. "Was there ever anything between us?"

She hesitates and looks back, a maelstrom of emotions warring in her clear blue eyes. He waits, hoping for a response he knows he'll never hear.

"No," she says finally, the regret in her voice faint but tangible. "No, not in that way." Her fingers play nervously over the fabric of the tent and he watches, mesmerized. "We - we were really, really good friends."

She steps from the tent, leaving a room full of regret and longing and things left unsaid.

Arrom stares after her, certain of one thing: Daniel Jackson may have been compassionate, but he was also an idiot.

* * *

Outside the tent, the soldiers are talking, vaguely familiar chatter that makes him feel lonely for a life he might never remember. "What of Daniel Jackson?" The Jaffa, Teal'c, asks the others.

Before he can stop himself, Arrom stands and walks calmly from the tent. Looking at the people he knows but doesn't know, he says quietly, "He's going home."

He doesn't know where he's come from or where he's going, but he finally knows who he is. His name is Daniel Jackson, and he's going home.

* * *

**_"I have only to smash these vials together to create a poisonous gas that will fill this room." Kera stared at him, half innocent, half monster, the good in her receding more by the second. "I only want to harm myself. I don't want you to be here! Please ... "_**

"You'll have to kill me too, because I'm staying," he said, his voice more calm than he felt.

"I deserve to die!"

He shook his head. "I don't believe that."

She looked at him sadly, eyes brimming with regret. "You don't understand. There's a part of me that cares for you, Daniel, more than I have cared for anyone I've ever known." The regret vanished, replaced by scalding hate. "But there is this other part of me that would GLADLY WATCH YOU DIE!"

The door slammed open and Jack O'Neill cocked his pistol. "Step aside, Daniel," he said flatly, his voice void of emotion.

"Don't! There's another way, Jack." He had seen too many unnecessary deaths. He would give anything, including his life, to prevent this one.

"Move!" Jack shouted, always the protector, focused on saving his teammate.

She didn't need to die. She was caught in a horrible trap, terrified of what she had been, what she was becoming. If there had been no other option, he would have let her end her torment ... but there was another way.

"Give me the vials, Kera. You don't have to do this."

Kera shook her head. "There are two people inside of me, and one of them is a monster. In time, she will win."

"You won't hurt me, because there's another way, Kera."

"I'M NOT HER!" The blond woman screamed, torn between the two personalities battling for control of her mind.

"No, you're not. But you can be her again. You can forget." Her back was against the wall, her face tear-streaked as she held the vials in shaking fingers. "All you have to do is forget."

Closing her eyes, she nodded.

Daniel jerks awake, gasping uncontrollably, sweat-soaked hair plastered to his face. He saved Kera, saved her and sent her home and changed the fate of her adopted people. Maybe he saved a lot of people. Maybe in the end he saved more lives than he took and never took a life unless he had no other choice.

Maybe it's okay to be Daniel Jackson.

There's a tentative knock on the door, three short, soft raps. When he opens it, Sam is standing there. She takes in his tousled hair, his blurry eyes, and shifts self-consciously from one foot to the other. "Is this a bad time? I mean, did I wake you up?"

"No to both questions." He opens the door wider. Sam steps inside, and with a small smile, reaches out and brushes drops of sweat from his forehead. "Nightmares?" She asks softly.

He nods.

"Yeah, well, I guess you have a lot to dream about. We all do, but for you ... it's all new."

He nods again and isn't sure what to do. He wishes he could tell her how he feels, how he's pretty sure he's felt for a long time. He wishes he could pull her into his arms and never let go. Instead, he stands and looks at her and thinks, _Daniel Jackson was an idiot for not marrying this woman, and now I'm Daniel Jackson again and nothing will ever change. I'll never be able to tell her._

Sam puts her arms around him gently, as if he's fragile and might break. The warmth of her head against his chest is almost startling, because he's been cold for so long. He is so very tired of being alone.

He lifts his arms and puts them around her. "Sam, I - "

"Shh." She looks up at him, her eyes wide and clear. "I know. I've known for a long time. It took your ascension to make me realize I couldn't live without you."

They stand there for a long time, holding each other, drawing strength from each other. He decides that it's actually pretty nice to be Daniel Jackson.

In the end, it took the loss of everything to make him realize that the one person he really needed was waiting right where he left her.

**FINIS**


End file.
